


A Simple Life

by orphan_account



Series: Mahal's Blueprints [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Bilbo has existential crisis before breakfast, Fluff, M/M, Past Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Past Relationships, Ridiculously Lovely Bofur, Snuggling, just so people know, mentioned Bombur - Freeform, mentioned bifur, mentioned thorin - Freeform, the thilbo is in the past and this is mostly boffins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 18:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20068918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bilbo regards Bofur and wonders if first choices are ever the right ones in life. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart.





	A Simple Life

**Author's Note:**

> AKA "Hobbit has existential crisis before breakfast."  
This work takes place in the same universe as "Mahal's Blueprints" but you don't really need to read that first to understand this.

Bilbo was awoken, as he was most mornings, by a gentle snore. His eyes slowly opened to a sight that made his heart melt and he leant up on his elbow to regard his dwarf.

Bofur's face was partly hidden by his hands, which were curled up on the pillow next to him as he slept. Shaggy yet soft, unbraided hair framed his usually animated face which was now peaceful and still in sleep. Bilbo gently pushed back a dark strand of hair from Bofur's face affectionately.

The cadance of Bofur's snores shifted and a powerful arm gripped Bilbo round his waist and pulled him closer to the dwarf. The hobbit lay still, relaxed and listening to the sound of Bofur's heartbeat and the sound of songbirds and gentle breeze outside. He smiled. He felt so contented and happy. He wouldn't have it any other way.

That last thought gave him pause and his eyebrows knitted together.

Was it wrong to feel this way after all he had felt for Thorin? That he was so happy he was completely satisfied with his current life?

The lingering guilt had been one of the reasons he told Bofur he wanted to take things slow when the miner had finally confessed his feelings for Bilbo a year ago in front of the fireplace.

Only four years before he had felt Thorin was the love of his life. But Bofur made him so happy now.

Was there really such a thing as “the love of your life?”

Had Thorin really been that?

Bilbo lay his cheek against Bofur's chest and furrowed his brow in thought. Since he was being held captive by a large, hairy dwarf arm, now was as good a time as any to have a think about the two people in his life that had meant the most to him.

From the beginning, Bofur had cared for Bilbo. He'd watched out for him, tried to make him feel welcome when the others, including Thorin were still skeptical about the hobbit, and he had swapped stories and songs with him. Bilbo had told Bofur that the miner seemed more like a hobbit than a dwarf, and Bofur had laughed at that and said he was honoured but needed to shed a foot or so so that he could be a “proper short arse”. They'd been as thick as thieves at once point, giggling at night, bedrolls near one another, at Bofur's ridiculous sense of humour, the pipeweed warm in their chests and Bilbo, oblivious, hadn't realized that the miner's feelings for him eventually extended beyond friendship.

He'd continued to be oblivious even when Bofur had taken a step back when he realized how Bilbo felt about the king. And hadn't that been just like Bofur? Putting Bilbo's happiness above his own, even when it hurt him. Even after Laketown.

Bilbo was oblivious still, when Bombur took him aside after the dragon was dead and before they all realized that war was brewing.

“He was worried sick about you, you know? Bofur. He told me. He always worries about you.”

“Well, I'm alive and in one piece. Thankfully we all seem to be.”

“Aye. Thank Mahal.”

Bombur never told Bilbo that the reason Bofur had drank himself into oblivion the night before they'd left Laketown for the mountain was because of the hobbit's feelings for Thorin.

And Bilbo had never found out, though in hindsight he had arrived at a similar conclusion independently. And still Bofur had never let on, because he didn't want to feel like a “burden” to Bilbo.

In hindsight a lot of things suddenly made sense. Like Bofur helping Bilbo escape when he thought Bilbo was leaving them the night before the war, even though he was sneaking off to give the Arkenstone to Bard and Thranduil. Or the way Bofur's face lit up whenever he saw Bilbo. He had not known then that he was loved by two people in immensely different ways.

From afar, by kind and funny Bofur who always sacrificed his own happiness for Bilbo's, and from close by, out in the open by Thorin, a brave and handsome king who saw worth in Bilbo. Both of them had put themselves at risk to protect the hobbit.

At least until the dragon sickness...Part of him still ached that the dwarf he'd loved had tried to throw him off the ramparts of Erebor. Though even before then, before Thorin had realized Bilbo belonged amoung the company, Thorin had said hurtful things at times. He'd nearly left because of them. Bofur had tried to convince him to stay, and he would have abandoned both dwarves were it not for the incident with the goblin tunnels.

What would have things been like if the king had lived? After all, Thorin had been himself again when Bilbo had found him dying on the battlefield.

Bilbo was sure he would have still loved him, but would Thorin have left Erebor to be with Bilbo in the Shire? The idea was unlikely. Thorin would have needed to _rule_ Erebor and he couldn't very well do that from Hobbiton. And Bilbo had missed the Shire terribly throughout his journey. He remembered wishing he could take his friends home with him when he left the Lonely Mountain with Gandalf. Home felt like two places: his friends and his comfortable hole in the ground.

Bofur had no such ties to the Lonely Mountain, since he was from Ered Luin. In fact, his family had returned to the Blue Mountains a few years after retaking Erebor. Bifur had found a dwarrowdam with a fine beard and married her, and Bombur had gone back to see his family, though the younger dwarf had eventually returned to Erebor with his rather large family in tow. After all, the variety of food in the North was much richer and he wanted his wife and dwarflings to share in that.

Bofur had followed his heart to Bilbo in the Shire, and he'd risked doing so even when he realized his feelings might not have been returned. And Bilbo knew he would have let the hobbit go if those feelings had never been returned, as he always did. But they had, and the hobbit was glad.

He smiled to himself. Bofur made him laugh every day. Even on days when he was annoyed with the dwarf for tracking muddy boots through his house, or shedding copious amounts of hair in the bathtub and not remembering to wash it out. The dwarf just had a way of making Bilbo smile.

He knew if he told Bofur that he wanted to run out the door on another adventure, the dwarf would gladly follow him without hesitation. After all, he did want to see the Lonely Mountain and Rivendell again.

But he was also content under the roof of his smial.

_It's no bad thing to celebrate a simple life_ he thought to himself.

_A life of steaming hot cups of tea, of running indoors from a rainstorm, and towelling off in front of the fireplace, wrapping up in blankets and leaning against one another._

_A life of pulling up vegetables from the garden and making a hearty stew with them later._

_A life of raking up leaves and having a stocky dwarf jump into the pile, scattering them everywhere while Bilbo scolded him but ended up joining in._

_A life where he read his books in bed by candlelight with a shaggy dwarf head resting on his lap._

_A life where they sat on top of Bag End watching the moon rise while having a quiet smoke._

_A life where the neighbours were routinely scandalised by the presence of a dwarf in the Shire and it kept Lobelia away._

_A life where a dwarf and a hobbit would sit in the bath tub some nights, enjoying each other's company while they washed each other's hair._

_A life where Bofur pressed soft, whiskery kisses to Bilbo's naked body, making the hobbit's nervous system light up as he writhed happily in the dark._

_A life where Bofur had started a braid in the hobbit's hair and told him he loved him more than anything in the world from his curly head down to his hairy toes and that the Shire was where he wanted to be because of that. Because it was Bilbo's home and he belonged with Bilbo._

That life would not have been possible in Erebor.

Bofur let out a particularly loud snore under Bilbo's ear, stirred, then woke up.

“Well, hullo,” he mumbled happily, upon realizing he had a soft, cuddly hobbit in his arms.

“Good morning to you too.”

“Mmm. Always is when I have a short arse in my arms.”

“Who are you calling a short arse, dwarf?” said Bilbo, looking affronted at Bofur's teasing grin. “I'll have you know that next to a man we're both rather vertically challenged.”

“Good thing you're not a man, then. Yer the _perfect _size for me.” The dwarf pressed a kiss to Bilbo's temple and gave his bottom a squeeze.

“You're lucky I love you,” Bilbo pouted, sitting up.

“Mm. I never forget how much I am.”

Bilbo's face paled.

“What's wrong, love?”

Bilbo picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “I...nothing. I just. I was doing some thinking this morning and...well, I wanted to say I'm...sorry.”

Bofur cocked his head. A gesture that Bilbo often found adorable. “Fer what?”

“For not realizing that you loved me for all those years. Did I make the wrong choice at first?”

Bofur's eyes softened.

“Bilbo, come here,” said the dwarf, and he pulled the worried hobbit into his lap. Bilbo snuggled against him with a soft whimper.

“It doesn't work like that, Bilbo,” said the dwarf, holding him close and running his fingers through the hobbit's messy curls. “Life isn't like that. It's...messy. Sometimes things fall into place and sometimes they don't. There's no one true set path. Life is for the livin' and you've got naught to be sorry about.”

Bilbo felt himself relax a little. Bofur always knew just what to say to calm him down.

“You bein' happy now doesn't mean yer disrespectin' Thorin and the way you felt for him then doesn't mean ye disrespected me. He would _want_ ye to be happy. That's why he wanted you to go home to yer books and garden. Ye'll drive yerself nutty if you think too much about the way happiness works.” He smiled fondly at Bilbo and tugged gently at one of his curls. “Silly hobbit.”

Bilbo was silent for a moment as he regarded his dwarf, then he ran his small hands though Bofur's scruffy strands of dark hair. The dwarf closed his eyes happily as Bilbo watched him. 

_Life is for the living. _Yes, that was true. Just because you loved someone didn't mean it always worked out. And there was nothing wrong with that. You could still care for someone and keep the good memories. Bofur knew that better than anyone. What was wrong with being happy now and making new memories with someone you loved?

The halfling smiled and pressed his forehead against Bofur's in the time honoured dwarven sign of affection and the dwarf shivered happily.

They stayed that way for some time until Bilbo's stomach growled and Bofur laughed merrily. It was time for first breakfast.

**Author's Note:**

> Bifur "going back to Ered Luin and marrying a dwarrowdam with a fine beard" is William Kircher's headcanon for what Bifur would do after the war. Though he said "dwarrowdam with a sexy beard." XD
> 
> "It's no bad thing to celebrate a simple life" is of course, Bilbo's quote from Fellowship of the Ring.
> 
> "Bofur is more like a hobbit than a dwarf" is a canon thing from one of the movie guides.
> 
> Also, I know I have a multi-chapter on the go, and I'm still working on the second chapter, it's just taking my headspace longer than I thought so I'm writing one shots until I get it sorted. :) Thanks for reading!


End file.
